Battling an ill handling car for the enitre race, Denny Hamlin was able to salvage a sixth place finish for the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team. Heading to Las Vegas with a top-10 under his belt, has Hamlin anxious of the upcoming event.

"It was important to get to California and run well after Daytona and I think we had high expectations," explained Hamlin. "We struggled at times during the race but worked hard to bring the handling back around and ended up with a top-ten, almost a top-five, day. That helps us in the points a bit and it really does give the team a boost as we look ahead."

The Shelby 427 will mark Hamlin's fourth start at the 1.5 mile speedway. Having yet to post anything short of a top-10 finish in his previous starts and having an average finish of 7.3, Hamlin is considered one of the favorites in Sunday's event.

"Vegas is a fast track, much more like Charlotte since they made the changes to the track a few years ago," Hamlin said when comparing Las Vegas to other 1.5 mile tracks. "It's unique in that the transitions are different than other intermediates but you get really close racing. The track changes over the course of the race so the driver can usually find a
place where the car works."

Stating that no testing may have been the cause of the California struggle, Hamlin notes that testing is important to prepare your car for any given race. Without testing more pressure is put on the crew to set up a car that can contend for a win off the truck.

"Vegas is a track where we've spent two days testing in recent years. You can't really make up for not having two days of testing but it really puts the emphasis on the crew to set up a car that is as close as possible off the truck." Hamlin continued, "The less time you can spend making major changes in practice, the more time you can spend fine tuning your cars for the race. That's where you want to be and I know the guys on the No. 11 team and at JGR are on top of their game."